


dark chocolate strawberries

by ShowMeAHero



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Jealousy, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mid-Twenties Losers, Mutual Pining, Sleepovers, Spin the Bottle, Truth or Dare, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 13:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22717105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: The way Eddie's looking at Stan— Richie’s been on the receiving end of enough of Eddie’s playfully-mad looks to know this isn’t one of them. His heart starts pounding again. Hehasto be overthinking things. There’s no fuckingwayhe’s not. After all this time, how could henotbe, since—Well. Then again, what the fuck does he have to lose? Maybe it’s the boxed wine talking, or the fact that his ability to keep in his own secret is hanging on by a fuckingthread,or the way Eddie truly seems pissed that other people are kissing Richie like this, but— Regardless.Regardless, Richie wants to keep testing this theory.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 21
Kudos: 407
Collections: IT ❀ Valentine's Day Fic Exchange





	dark chocolate strawberries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dumbasshyperfixationtime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbasshyperfixationtime/gifts).



> For the IT 🎈 Valentine's Day Gift Exchange!
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!

On Valentine’s Day, 2003, the only people with dates are Ben and Bev, and their dates are each other. They still come over to Bill’s place during the day, because it’s tradition, though. Their dinner reservations aren’t until 8:30 at night, in some nice place Ben found for them. Richie would be concerned that Ben would propose, if he didn’t know Ben had actual brain cells. Once they’re gone, though, the rest of them would be sleeping over, same as always.

Until then, it’s just the seven of them, boxed wine, takeout, and horror movies. They’ve done the same thing every year since they were kids, when Richie and Bill started it in 1981, two little boys who wanted to be involved in the holiday but didn’t want to deal with all the romantic adult emotion attached. Of course, then it had been water and pizza and horror movies, but times change as people do. They still do the sleepovers, though, even though they’re in their mid-twenties, now. It just wouldn’t be the same without it.

By the time it’s nearly seven at night, Richie can tell Bev’s getting anxious about something. She’s fidgety, when usually she just reclines against one of them and drifts while watching their movies; she’s chosen Eddie tonight, and she’s leaning up against him, but she keeps shifting. Eddie’s attention span is better than Richie’s, but even he keeps looking down at her with a furrowed brow.

“I have an idea,” Bev announces, the second _Train to Busan_ ends. Ben is the only one who doesn’t look at her expectantly, immediately revealing himself as in on it. Instead, Ben looks up and meets Richie’s eyes. His cheeks flush.

“What’re you doing?” Eddie demands. Richie turns to see him glancing nervously between Ben and Richie. “What’s happening?”

“Don’t be paranoid,” Bev says, even though she’s done nothing to earn less paranoia. “I just thought we could play a game. Y’know, like we used to.”

“We can’t play Monopoly,” Bill reminds them.

“At _all,”_ Stan adds sternly. “I don’t even want to _see_ the box.”

“I meant more like Never Have I Ever, or Spin the Bottle,” Bev suggests. After a beat, she adds, with faux subtlety, “Or, maybe… Truth or Dare?”

“I’m sorry, I forgot, I’m _twelve,”_ Richie says. He pushes Stan away from him and says, “Sorry, Stan, this is a crime now in every state in—”

“Beep, beep, Richie,” Bev says. Richie deflates, slumping back down into Stan and the corner of the couch. “I just thought it might be a nice idea.”

“I think Spin the Bottle is a great idea,” Ben chimes in. Everyone turns to him in one movement, and he looks briefly startled. “Uhh—”

“Of course _you_ think so,” Stan says.

“You’re already with Bev,” Bill points out.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to _get_ Bev,” Ben counters. There’s a pause.

“So… Anyone would be able to kiss anyone?” Mike hedges. Richie glances at him as he turns to Stan, which is _intriguing,_ because Mike hasn’t told Richie anything but Stan _has,_ and he knows Stan’s got a huge crush on Mike _and_ another one on Bill.

“I’m willing to kiss anyone,” Ben says, with the confidence of a man steadily dating one of the most beautiful people Richie’s ever seen.

“Won’t it be weird now that we’re older?” Eddie asks. “We’re not thirteen year olds experimenting anymore.”

“Would that we were,” Richie comments. Eddie shoots him a look that just makes Richie grin.

“We’re adults,” Eddie continues, as if Richie hadn’t even spoken. “Adults kiss other adults for reasons kids don’t kiss other kids.”

“And sometimes they do it for the same reasons,” Bev counters. “For fun.”

“But you don’t have to,” Ben adds. “If you don’t want to. We can always—”

“I want to,” Mike hurries to say. Richie chances a glance at Eddie only to find him staring back already. It makes Richie’s heart pound, skyrocketing up into his throat. Something about the look on Eddie’s face positively _possesses_ Richie, for a moment, to be stupider than he’s ever been.

“I do, too,” Richie says. He and Ben exchange a surprised glance, both of them not having expected that to come out of his mouth, but he doubles down in panic and says, “What better chance to show you all what you’re—”

“Beep, beep,” Ben tries to interrupt, but Richie ignores him.

“—missing out on in your absolute _cowardice,”_ Richie continues. Bill laughs, and Eddie smiles, his cheeks flushed as he glances to Bev. Richie wants to _lick_ the heat off his face.

“I’m game if you are,” Eddie says, directly to Richie. It doesn’t do any favors for Richie’s face, either, because _that_ just makes him flush red, too. He has to look away from Eddie before his eyeballs blow out of their sockets from the tension in his brain.

“I’ll do it,” Stan concedes. Richie doesn’t miss the way his attention lingers on Mike before they all look to Bill. He just sighs.

“Fine,” he allows. Richie high-fives Ben for the hell of it, even though he only agreed twelve seconds ago.

Since their wine is boxed, Bill has to dig through his recycling before he finds a glass bottle for cream soda and rinses that out. Eddie then snatches it directly out of his hands and washes it with dish soap before allowing Bev to touch it, which makes Richie weirdly half-hard, for some reason. Just watching Eddie’s hands with the bottle under the water. He banishes himself to the living room as punishment.

When they were kids and they played games like this, they would sprawl all over the place, on different pieces of furniture and the floor, in all sorts of positions. Now, they’re more interested in being comfortable, and so instead they just drape themselves across Bill’s sofa and loveseats together, close enough to reach out to one another in the nearly-circle the seating forms in the living room. Richie puts himself squarely in between Bev and Stan on the sofa, since they both fit so easily under his arms and so take up less space. Never mind the person he wants most to fit easily under his arm and take up space with him, who’s sitting on one loveseat with Bill while Mike and Ben take up the other.

Bev goes first, all smiling confidence as she winks at Mike before she spins the bottle on Bill’s coffee table in between them all. She spun it too well, and the surface of the table is smooth, so it spins for a while without any real pattern, which is frustrating; Richie had been hoping to look for some sort of grooves or something to avoid kissing Eddie, since he wants so fucking _desperately_ to be kissing Eddie.

The bottle lands on Eddie, like it heard Richie’s thoughts and just gave them to the wrong person. At least it’s Bev, who makes Eddie’s cheeks flush red when she leans up and over the arms of the furniture to gently peck him on the lips. He smiles, when she pulls back, looking up into her eyes where she’s hovering over him and grinning back. Richie wants so badly for Eddie to look up at _him_ that way after kissing _him_ that his stomach twists and he has to look down at his hands.

“Okay, your turn, Rich,” Bev says, because they’re right next to each other. It makes sense, since they’re going in a circle and he’s always easy-going about these games, but it’s also Valentine’s Day and he’s been starting to get incredibly hopeless about how in love he is with Eddie, and he’s severely off his game.

He spins the bottle anyways, and for a heart-stopping second, it looks like it’s going to land on Eddie. Richie contemplates leaving the country altogether and fleeing back to Canada while the bottle moves just an _inch_ far enough to land on Bill, which is a motherfucking _relief._ Bill’s _fine._ Bill’s completely safe — Richie had a crush on him when they were both six, they kissed, they both gagged, they moved on. This is not their first kiss, and Richie hopes it won’t be their last.

“Get over here, Big Bill,” Richie says, but he meets Bill halfway between the couches. Bev had given Eddie a peck, but Richie’s comedy, he thinks, stems from his showmanship, so he cups Bill’s face and gives him a proper kiss he’d give a boyfriend if he had one, in the scenario where Eddie had never existed because his mother was killed by a well-meaning, time-traveling Richie in another timeline.

He gets so distracted by his own derailing train of thought that he kisses Bill longer than he means to, but he’s still the one who pulls back first. They give each other a mildly surprised look before Richie laughs and Bill grins, shoving at Richie’s shoulder as they part. Richie’s still watching Bill as his attention shoots to Stan, on Richie’s other side. For a beat, Richie thinks he’s waiting for him to take his turn; then, he realizes he’s evaluating Stan’s response to their kiss, and so Richie twists to do the same.

Stan’s face is red, but he staunchly avoids eye contact with anyone as he sits up and away from Richie to reach for the bottle on the table. Richie’s eyes flick up instead to Eddie’s face, on instinct, to find Eddie already looking back at him again. Just like before, Richie’s heart pounds when he catches it. This time, though, Eddie’s cheeks are all flushed and his brow is all furrowed, his mouth drawn down like he’s angry about something. After a beat, he looks away, staring down hard at the bottle as it spins.

Richie’s head is spinning trying to comprehend what the fuck Eddie’s look was all about when Stan’s bottle lands on him. He hears Stan sigh before turning to him, which is the only thing that helps him snap out of his own brain.

“You know, if I die immediately after you kiss me,” Richie points out in a rush, voice only slightly choked, “then you’ll be my first kiss _and_ my last, Stan.”

 _“You_ were his first kiss?” Eddie asks incredulously. Richie looks up, ready to answer, only to see Eddie looking at _Stan_ instead. Stan frowns at him.

“He asked,” Stan says, slightly defensive. He looks back up to Richie for validation, but it takes Richie a second to catch on. He’s still slow on the uptake; half of his brain keeps spinning its wheels, caught on Eddie’s expression from before.

“I was exploring that whole, _hey, I think I’m gay_ thing.” Richie shrugs, cupping Stan’s face in his hands and saying, “I figured it out real quick after that,” before he kisses Stan.

The thing is, Richie is smart. He’s _really_ smart. He was valedictorian of his high school class; he graduated from a dual-degree program in three years with a bachelor’s and a master’s. He’s a smart guy. He’s taken a shitload of science courses. He knows how to theorize and how to make a hypothesis before carrying out your experiments.

He theorizes Eddie’s upset about Richie and Bill’s kiss. He’s testing to see if it’s because of Richie or Bill by deepening his kiss with Stan more than he would normally. Interestingly, Stan responds in kind, shifting up and actually parting his lips, briefly, before Richie even gets the chance to do it first. When they pull apart, Stan’s cheeks are pink, but he’s smiling.

“Better every year, my man,” Richie tells him, unable to look away from Eddie for much longer. When he chances it, Eddie’s looking to Stan again, unexpectedly, but now he’s glaring at him. Richie’s been on the receiving end of enough of Eddie’s playfully-mad looks to know this isn’t one of them. His heart starts pounding again. He _has_ to be overthinking things. There’s no fucking _way_ he’s not. After all this time, how could he _not_ be, since—

Well. Then again, what the fuck does he have to lose? Maybe it’s the boxed wine talking, or the fact that his ability to keep in his own secret is hanging on by a fucking _thread,_ or the way Eddie truly seems pissed that other people are kissing Richie like this, but— Regardless.

Regardless, Richie wants to keep testing this theory. He thinks Stan’s caught on, too, maybe, based on the way he’s studying Mike’s face curiously. Richie wonders if Bev planned this all along, knowing how close Richie was to snapping, but he prays not. He hopes he’s not been _that_ obvious, that people need to come up with—

 _“Richie,”_ Bill says loudly. Richie’s head snaps up to look at him, and Bill smiles, looking amused with him. He points at the bottle and says, “You’re up again, hot stuff.”

“There must be a fucking tilt to the floor or something,” Eddie explodes abruptly. When everybody looks at him, he folds his arms and says, “I’m just saying, the game won’t be any fucking fun if it keeps landing on the same person.”

“Even if that person’s me?” Richie asks, unable to stop himself. He feels like he’s outside his own body when he continues, “And even though _your_ turn is next?”

Eddie’s eyes dart to Bill beside him, fearful, before he realizes it’s true. He looks horrified, but Richie’s not sure why, now. Probably because he doesn’t want to kiss Richie, but now, potentially, because he’s maybe ruined his own chances _to_ kiss Richie.

Thesis, hypothesis, experiment. Richie and Bill get up to kiss again over Stan, and, this time, Bill deepens the kiss by a lot, deeper than Stan had. Richie’s starting to feel a _little_ used in their weird game when Bill pulls away. He blinks up at Richie, and the feeling of being used goes away, because Bill looks adorable and pleased and just as scared as him.

“In another life where this wouldn’t be incest,” Richie says to him, “it was always you and me.”

Bill clasps his hand and says, “Soulmates,” just as dramatically as Richie’s being. Bev and Ben both laugh, but nobody else does. Mike just looks silently frozen in place while Stan and Eddie are quietly fuming.

“You’re up, Eds,” Richie points out. “Tragically, you’re probably going to get me.”

Richie’s heart pounds with the possibility, especially since it’s now a probability and is edging into a likelihood. He feels like the house collapses out from under his feet and the ground swallows him up when the bottle lands on Mike instead.

“Guess there’s no tilt,” Richie says softly. He meant to be louder, and funnier, but. Oh, well. He glances to Eddie, and they make eye contact for a beat where Eddie’s entire face turns down nearly towards tears before he composes himself and looks to Mike instead. Richie’s palms are starting to sweat. He lifts his arms off of Bev and Stan because he’s getting fidgety, now, unable to sit still.

When Mike and Eddie kiss over the coffee table, it’s soft and chaste but it’s also so fucking sweet and tender than Richie wants to tear his own hair out by the roots. If he had the chance, he’d gouge his own eyes out with a _spoon_ before watching another man kiss Eddie that way. It’d just be fucking easier.

Eddie sits back down when Mike takes the bottle and spins. His turn lands on Bill, which is _loaded,_ and the air in the room is immediately ten times thicker than it had been seconds before. Mike gets up off the couch completely and straightens his shirt before clearing his throat. He looks adorably like a nervous prom date, and it makes Richie laugh, slightly hysterically. Bev elbows him; Stan’s too fixated on Mike to notice.

“Is it okay if I—” Mike starts to say, but Bill nods and he stops mid-sentence. They’re standing, leaning over the coffee table, a little awkward, but then Mike cups Bill’s face in his hand and stoops down to kiss him and Bill bends up to meet the kiss in earnest. Richie feels like a mom watching her son on the front porch through the window after his first date.

When they separate, they stare at each other for a long second before, interestingly, their eyes _both_ flick to Stan. He looks supremely caught out, eyes darting between them like a tennis match, before Ben takes pity on them and gets up to spin the bottle himself. Of course, it lands on Richie.

 _“Motherfucker,”_ Eddie spits. Ben gets up to kiss Richie over Bev’s head. Richie just barely remembers to test his hypothesis, and he deepens the kiss with Ben just like he had with Bill.

“Jealous?” Bev probes. Richie pulls away from Ben so he can look to Eddie for his response. The look Eddie shoots her is answer enough, but, being Eddie, he still has to answer anyways.

“Of course I’m not fucking _jealous,_ they’re fucking— I just— The game’s fucking rigged,” Eddie snaps. Bev shrugs, leaning forward and picking the bottle up off the table, tearing at the label with her nails.

“Then we can play something else,” Bev says. “Would You Rather, Seven Minutes in—”

“No,” Eddie cuts her off.

“Truth or Dare,” Ben suggests again, just like Bev had before. There’s a beat of silence. Richie doesn’t make a smartass comment this time; instead, he just waits.

“Fine,” Eddie concedes, inevitably. Ben motions to him with his hand and Eddie, pink-faced, says, “Oh. Uhh— Tr— Uh, dare.”

“Coward,” Bev says. Eddie flips her off.

“I dare you to spin the bottle again,” Ben says, taking the bottle from Bev and setting it back down on the coffee table. There’s a beat of charged silence before Eddie sighs and leans forward. If there’s one thing Eddie _can’t_ do, it’s back down from something.

He spins the bottle. It almost lands on Richie but it doesn’t go far enough; it lands on Bev, instead, and Richie thinks _fucking shit_ so hard that he says, out loud, “Fucking _shit.”_

The room goes silent again. Eddie looks at him while Richie refuses to look back, just feeling Eddie’s eyes burning into his hair while he stares down at his own hands.

“Richie, truth or dare,” Eddie says, finally.

“But you didn’t—” Bill starts to point out, but Eddie cuts him off.

“He said I had to spin the bottle, he didn’t say I had to do anything else, so be quiet for a second and let Richie answer,” Eddie says, all in one breath. It would make Richie smile, if he wasn’t seconds away from anxiety-vomiting all over Bill’s carpet. “Richie.”

Richie doesn’t respond. Eddie waits, just a beat, before he stops waiting altogether.

“Truth or dare,” he repeats. Richie stares down at his hands still, and he contemplates just not answering and letting everything move on without him, but that’s all his life _has_ been lately. Ben and Bev are together now, and they’ll probably get engaged and married soon. They’re settling in to jobs, and homes, and— and actual real, adult lives, not transitional or temporary, but _real_ and concrete and _sturdy._ Before, he had partners in knowing his love was unrequited, but now he’s seen Mike and Bill kiss, and Stan watch them, and he thinks they know now, maybe, and maybe Eddie knows about him, too, and things are starting to fall apart—

But if they don’t, he reasons, they’ll move on without him. So, it’s better to let it fall apart and see what’s underneath the renovation layers to build on.

“Truth,” Richie says. Notoriously, Richie will never choose truth. It’s mostly because he was terrified of exactly the question he thinks Eddie is about to ask, because giving up that truth was the only thing he was completely unwilling to do. He’d take any dare and do any stupid crazy thing they wanted over looking Eddie in the eyes, saying _I love you,_ and having Eddie look away.

“Will you look at me?” Eddie asks. Richie hesitates, then looks up.

“Yes,” he says. He smiles, then says, “And there’s your truth, so I—”

“Will you be my Valentine?” Eddie cuts him off, and he says it so loud and so fast that Richie’s abruptly startled before he feels like his eyes are melting down the back of his throat and his heart is pounding so fast it’s like he might pass out. Bill whoops, and Mike claps his hands together, but Richie’s frozen in place, staring directly at Eddie, who just keeps staring back, waiting for Richie’s answer.

“Richie?” Bev asks. She squeezes his hand, and Richie briefly registers that Eddie’s brow has faintly creased in concern.

“Nope, sorry, I’m good, I just— I got lightheaded,” Richie says, before he can think to censor himself, and Eddie’s entire face breaks open like Richie’s only ever been able to see the sun through clouds and now he’s getting to see it full-force for the first time.

 _That’s what it feels like,_ he realizes, _to let go of your secret._

“Yes,” he tells Eddie, and Eddie gets up faster than Richie can even track his movements, all but climbing over the coffee table to haul Richie up and to his feet, too.

There’s a brief pause, right before they kiss. Richie thinks Eddie’s just going to yank him in and go for it, and he’s kinda _really_ excited for it, but then Eddie’s hands slow and then stop, framing Richie’s face. He strokes the pad of his thumb under one of Richie’s eyes, then pushes his glasses up into his hair. Richie blinks, trying to get his eyes to focus up a little better. Eddie leans in, stretching up onto the balls of his feet and lightly pulling at Richie to guide him down; he gets clearer the closer he gets, until they’re an inch apart and all Richie _can_ see is Eddie. All he can _think_ about is Eddie. All there _is,_ is Eddie.

“I love you,” Eddie tells him, because, again, he _never_ backs down.

Of course, Richie’s Richie, and when Eddie never backs down Richie just doubles down, and so he says, “I’ve been in love with you since before I can even remember.”

Eddie’s face goes so red Richie’s briefly worried for him before he finally surges up into the kiss, drawing Richie down and leading him into a deep kiss, tipping his head and parting his lips to let his tongue slide along Richie’s. He can’t fucking _believe_ it’s Eddie Kaspbrak doing this, that he’s somehow fucking _awake_ and allowed to do this, and it makes the back of his nose prickle. He sniffles, into his _first kiss with Eddie,_ and it makes Eddie pull back, and Richie’s _miserable_ over it.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks, bewildered and concerned and worried and already ready to fight something or someone, which just makes Richie sniff again and press the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“I just love you so much and I never thought I’d get to—” Richie starts saying, but then he inhales deeply and the breath catches on a sob, and he says, “Shit, I’m so sorry—”

“You fucking idiot,” Eddie tells him. Richie drops his hands to squint at Eddie, trying to see him through tears and without glasses; Eddie just reaches out and pulls his glasses back down for him, settling them over his nose. “Don’t apologize.”

“I love you,” Richie repeats, desperately, because he’s kept it in hundreds, or thousands— probably millions on billions of times, every time Eddie did some tiny thing that made Richie think _I love you_ so hard that the words nearly fell out of his mouth, every _fucking_ time, _every time._

“I just— I feel like I’m intruding,” Stan says, since he and Bev are still so close to them that he can feel the heat radiating off them through his pajama pants. Eddie looks furious before he turns from Richie to Stan.

“I’m sorry, can I have _one_ fucking moment after wanting to do this for years, fucking _thank you,”_ Eddie says.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t say anything for that long,” Stan shoots back. Eddie’s whole face empties for a second, terrifying, before he looks back to Bill, then to Mike. Whatever comes into his head is even more terrifying than the empty expression before, and Richie’s right to be afraid of it, because the way Eddie then looks to Stan is a warning in and of itself. Stan realizes it, too, and starts to say, “Eddie, I don’t know if—”

“Well, it’s not _my fault,”_ Eddie says over him, loudly, “that Mike and Bill clearly have a thing for each other after that kiss, and I think—”

“Not just—” Mike says, then stops. He sighs, then says, “Jesus, I’m just— Okay. Okay, fine, if we’re— I’m not gonna get stuck doing—” He takes a deep breath, then says, “Alright.”

“What?” Stan says, mouse-quiet. Mike looks to him.

“I’m in love with you,” Mike says. Stan’s still silent, staring at Mike from behind his glasses with the most shock Richie’s _ever_ seen on his face. It’s immediately topped by his expression seconds later when Mike looks to Bill and says, “And you, too.”

“What about me, too?” Bill asks, almost hesitant. Bev is nearly vibrating behind Richie with excitement, trying to keep quiet. Richie can’t stop himself from dragging his hands all over Eddie while his friends are talking, because he’s having his _own_ fucking thing right now, thank you very _fucking_ much. Eddie twists to look up at him, catching his face and guiding him into another kiss to keep him quiet and still.

“I’m in love with you, too,” Richie hears Mike say to Bill. He’s still kissing Eddie when the silence falls. When they pull away, he sees Bill looking at him.

“Are you fucking making out with Eddie while Mike’s telling me he’s in love with me?” Bill asks incredulously. Richie glances back down at Eddie and can’t help but smile.

“Wouldn’t you?” Richie asks. Eddie rolls his eyes, but Stan gets up then and forcibly separates them so he can step between them and over the coffee table.

“Bill, Mike, kitchen,” Stan says, before turning and walking out of the room without a single break in his pace. Mike darts a nervous glance to Ben, who pats him on the shoulder before giving him a shove towards Bill’s kitchen. After a beat, Mike does start to go.

He turns back then, though, and holds his hand out to Bill. Nobody speaks, but then Bill laughs.

“You’re a fucking sap, aren’t you?” Bill asks.

“You knew that already,” Mike tells him. Bill goes to him, taking his hand and letting their fingers thread together when Mike pulls him out of the room. The four of them left in the room are silent for a second.

“Bev, you fucking spider,” Richie accuses. “Spinning your little fucking _webs—”_

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” she says, standing and dusting herself off. “I won’t entertain the notion and I also have a dinner reservation with my boyfriend, so, goodnight and enjoy your boys’ sleepover.”

“I’m sure this year will be different than all the others,” Ben comments. Bev smacks him, but she’s smiling when she gathers up their shoes and coats and bags and they head out the door. When it bangs shut behind them and Richie and Eddie are left in the living room alone, Richie does what he does best and just laughs.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Eddie asks, but he’s grinning when Richie lifts his head to look at him properly.

“I just got fucking _whiplash,”_ Richie tells him. Eddie looks down, briefly, his hand coming out to tentatively reach for Richie’s. His fingertips brush Richie’s palm before he pushes his fingers in between Richie’s, letting them tangle together before he brings them up and kisses the back of Richie’s hand. Richie’s entire heart melts and fills his chest cavity with warm pink and shining gold.

“Let me know if you need anything looked at,” Eddie says, and Richie ducks down to give some of that rosy-gold feeling to Eddie, too, kissing him lightly before he pulls back, just a breath.

“Sure thing, Dr. K.,” he says. Eddie grins, then pushes his other hand through the hair at the back of Richie’s head, pulling Richie down to meet him on his own level for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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